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Daily Archives: September 2, 2015

I attract weirdos. A friend told me it’s just because I am an observer, and I notice quirks and oddities more readily than many people, but I still believe I have a Weirdo Magnet buried deep inside me. When the WM activates, look out. Some unique person will find me.

So today I am at the Wayzata Public Library reading a book and a woman comes over with a large brown purse, an over-stuffed shopping bag and a tattered, shopworn black stuffed bear. “Tsk”, she says, “there’s NO privacy around here!”

My silent presence in a window seat must have surprised her as she trudged around the corner. “Well”, said I, “at least I’m quiet”. As opposed to the jabbering crowd on the other side of the building. When did SHHHHH in the library end? Isn’t there one place where people can STFU??? These were older adults, too, who should know better.

Ms. Privacy-Seeker drops her purse and bag on a stool, and carefully places the bear in a chair, then begins rifling around in her bags. Plastic clicking, wrappers wrinkling, heavy sighs…obviously, she is not concerned with quiet, either. Her long and in-need-of-a-touch-up blonde hair is pulled into pigtails that sway limply with each hasty movement. Sloppy flip-flops on dirty feet, navy sweat pants stretched to the limit and a plain blue sleeveless top complete her look. Coupled with her hostile personality, I consider her a potential threat but I am stubborn. I’m not moving so she and Ratty the Bear can be alone.

She moves old Ratty, carefully picking him up and placing him in a chair closer to where she stands, possibly to give him a better view of Lake Minnetonka. (It really is a lovely view. Worth putting up with the Chatting Seniors Club to see it.) Ms. Privacy strides off, peeks around a door labeled Quiet Room. Apparently, it’s occupied because she stomps back, picks up Ratty and her bags, and with a final glare at me, sticks her face in the bear’s ear, murmuring, “C’mon, baby, we’ll go somewhere else”.

I toyed with the idea of finding her and smirking as I sat nearby, but it’s too humid to be involved with the authorities today. This one could have been dangerous.